Ex-NKorean spy meets relatives of Japan abductee

A teary Kim Hyon-hui, right, a former North Korean agent convicted of planting a bomb on a South Korean airliner in 1987, is consoled by Koichiro Iizuka, son of Taeko Taguchi who's one of more than a dozen Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago, during their meeting at the Bexco in Busan, South Korea, Wednesday, March 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Oh Su-hee)
— AP

A teary Kim Hyon-hui, right, a former North Korean agent convicted of planting a bomb on a South Korean airliner in 1987, is consoled by Koichiro Iizuka, son of Taeko Taguchi who's one of more than a dozen Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents decades ago, during their meeting at the Bexco in Busan, South Korea, Wednesday, March 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Yonhap, Oh Su-hee)
/ AP

BUSAN, South Korea 
A former North Korean spy met Wednesday with relatives of a Japanese woman abducted to the North decades ago, giving the abductee's son hope that his mother – declared dead by Pyongyang – might still be alive.

Kim Hyon-hui claims that Yaeko Taguchi, who vanished in Tokyo in 1978, taught her Japanese language and culture during her spy training. Kim then used that knowledge to pose as a Japanese woman and bomb a Korean Air jet in 1987, killing all 115 aboard.

Taguchi's relatives said they had new hope she was alive after Wednesday's emotional meeting, amid heavy police security, arranged after Kim expressed her desire to see Taguchi's brother and son.

She wanted to tell them how Taguchi lived in the North after her abduction – and that she doesn't believe Taguchi is dead.

North Korea has admitted to abducting Taguchi and 12 other Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s and using them to train spies. North Korean officials allowed five to return to Japan, saying the other eight had died. They said Taguchi was killed in a 1986 car accident.

Tokyo has demanded proof of their deaths and an investigation into other suspected kidnappings.

Kim hugged Taguchi's now 32-year-old son, Koichiro Iizuka, as they appeared before journalists. Iizuka was 1 year old when his mother was abducted. Kim wiped away tears and bowed several times.

Kim told reporters she was "very happy" to see Taguchi's son, adding he "is very handsome and resembles his mother a lot."

Kim disputed the North's claim of Taguchi's death, saying she heard Taguchi had moved to another place in North Korea. She said in a recent interview that the North may fear that allowing Taguchi back home would reveal details of the country's spy training.

"I think how great it would be if Taguchi could be here with us together," she said in a soft voice.

Taguchi's son said he will intensify efforts to get his mother, who disappeared at the age of 22, back home.

"I got the conviction that Taguchi, my mother, is alive," he said.

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso welcomed the meeting, but was cautious about its impact.

"I do not think this is a big step forward or will greatly help resolve the abduction issue," he told reporters. Aso emphasized that time was running out, as the relatives of the abducted families are advancing in age.

The meeting took place amid heavy security and fears Kim could be a target for anti-North Korea citizens, bereaved families of the airplane bombing victims and even North Korean agents.

Kim, 47, was sentenced to death in South Korea for the airliner bombing but was later pardoned on the grounds that she was duped by the North's communist regime into trying to disrupt the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and that she repented her crime.

Kim has told investigators that she and a male North Korean agent, posing as a Japanese father and daughter, boarded a Korean Air flight from Baghdad to Seoul on Nov. 28, 1987. They planted a time-bomb on the plane after getting off in Abu Dhabi. The plane exploded the next day over the Andaman Sea near Burma, now Myanmar, according to a South Korean investigation.